JC's Romance Enhancement: Biromantic Bastila Beta

[JCarter426 1,213]

Hi, everybody. I just finished playing through KOTOR today for the first time in several years. One thing bothered me... well, a lot of things bothered me, but I'm only telling you about one of them: the Bastila romance. Now, it's for male player characters only in the original game, but I was using a mod that gave the option for female player characters too... but I ran into some problems with it, so I decided to make my own. And since it'll be a while before I test this - I have to go through the entire game again - I've decided to release the beta for anyone who's interested.

 

Assuming I've done everything right, those playing with a female character will be able to romance Bastila just as they could with a male character, through talking to Bastila as your player gains experience and by choosing certain dialogue options. The romance can also be ended just as the male romance can, by choosing or avoiding certain dialogue options.

 

I've removed lines or parts of lines that reference the player's gender, and in some cases I've had to void existing lines in favor of the romance ones. I'm not entirely satisfied with all of these changes - in particular, the male version still has a lot more dialogue, and I  don't think that's fair - but my priority was to make everything flow naturally, with minimal editing.

 

Also, this should not interfere with the Carth or Juhani romances; you should be able to go through those as well Bastila's if you so desire. The game does not take issue with it.

 

I have no idea regarding mod compatibility yet, but this does alter Bastila's global dialogue, as well as the temple summit dialogue, so it's not compatible with a chunk of mods, I'm sure. I'll consider compatibility patches on a case by case basis, so let me know if you have a specific request.

 

This mod does not address any bugs inherent in the romance, although it won't conflict with any fixes that don't directly edit these files, either.

 

And fair warning: this is a BETA. I have NOT tested it. If you install this, YOU are testing it. And I'm grateful for that. But whatever happens, I will blame you. Unless it's something great. Then I'll take credit.

 

File is attached below. Backup link on MediaFire.

 

If you do run into problems, or have any other comments, ideas, etc, I'd like to hear them. Enjoy! If it works.

JC's Romance Enhancement - Biromantic Bastila v0.2b.zip

[milestails 264]

Curious to see what else bothered you.

[JCarter426 1,213]

A great many things that might also turn into mods... but not yet. I'm working on a few things to test along with Bastila next time I go through the game.

[TheDarkChocolateJedi 17]

Mods that alter dialogue are always great. Keep up the good work!

[JCarter426 1,213]

I was in K2 mode when I did this. Updated to 0.2b to account for differences in format. New files in first post.

 

You shouldn't have to start over or anything - just prevents the new lines from skipping the VO.

[L0ki194 82]

Ooh, thanks for this!

[Guest]

Any current status?

[JCarter426 1,213]

Still untested because I haven't had a chance to play through the whole game again yet. I meant to do it pretty soon after my initial post, but I ended up putting it off because I wanted to test another mod at the same time, but then I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with that, and the both ended up slipping. I'm debating what to do with both of them now. I'll make a new thread for the other one, but with regards to Bastila the beta was actually a bare-bones release of what I had planned. I don't like how the romance advances and I was looking into programming a new system for it. For example, with Carth, you're locked out of the romance if you go to Korriban last. When I last played I hadn't forgotten that, and so even though I was advancing the romance through three quarters of the game, I finally hit a dead end. There's also how it depends on your level progression, and with the level cap at 20 you have to make sure you talk to them whenever you can or you run out of chances to. That and the bugs in the Bastila romance mod I was using spurred me to address the issue myself. I had intended to do a quick run-through to make sure my own version wasn't buggy, while taking notes on how the romance flags work for when I start programming my new system. Although, I could probably figure it out by looking through the game files, so I'm not sure if I want to do a full run of the game just to test the beta now, since it's been so long.

 

But as with my other mod, I'm not sure how to proceed. I have some ideas, but I don't know how complicated I should make it. Even if the current system bothers me a bit, it's still playable. I don't want to make it worse. I guess I'll just list my ideas, and you people can tell me what you think.

 

• First, I'd like to get rid of the XP element or make it less of a thing. The game already locks some of the progression until certain story points, so I think I could rejigger it doesn't have to keep track of when you level up (and neither do you). I have to look through the variables to see what can be done, but my guess is that there are points where the game could be told "hey, it's been a while, forget the level mechanics, this is a good time for a new conversation" using variables it already tracks. If there are enough of those points then we could do away with the level checks entirely. Now, you might have to remember to talk to Bastila after key story points, but I think that's much more intuitive.
• Next, I'd like the game to stop assuming the romance is always active. There are a few lines that can shut it down for good, but in most cases, no matter what you say, it advances the romance. It's probably like that to make it easier, but I think after 15 years we're ready for a little more challenge. Plus it'll give you more options; if you want to pursue a romance with only Bastila or only Carth, it'll be easier for you to do that. As it it is now, the safest way to avoid a romance is to never talk to them. It's very true to life that way. But if you do talk to them, the game assumes it's on just based on your player's gender. This is the main part I'm not sure how to program yet. It most likely requires new variables.
• First, we need a variable to keep track of whether the romance is active. I believe, with the current system, if you do choose one of the few anti-romance dialogue options, it sets the progression state to 0 and never moves from that ever again. That's not what I want. I want it to start at 0 and if you say romantic things it goes up and then you get more romantic dialogue, but if you say anti-romantic things then it goes down, while not necessarily shutting you out forever. This would allow me to insert some of the dialogue I had to cut back into the game. In the standard game, several conversations have a male version and a female version - I would be changing those to a "romance is active" version and a default one.
• It might require separate variables for whether Bastila is interested in you and whether you are interested in Bastila. I'd have to check the dialogues to see how I feel about that.
• I've also long thought about adding an influence system to K1. Nothing as complicated as K2's, but such a system could affect things such as how difficult it is to redeem Bastila (rather than requiring a specific set of dialogue options at the last minute) and allow for changes to the party member's alignments based on specific plot choices such as whether Juhani kills Xor. It could also come into play with the romance system, possibly as some sort of modifier - like low influence with Bastila for a light-sided player makes the romance more difficult, but easier for a dark-sided player. Again, I don't know how complicated it should get.
• Finally, I don't think you should have to hit every conversation in order to complete the romance. I'd like that to be possible, of course, but not all the conversations are relevant to the romance, and there are a lot of them. I also remember being not very keen on the order of some of them. So I'm thinking of restructuring them. I'll have to look at them to decide, but based on what I recall, I think there are only a few key conversations needed for the romance to make sense, which could be unlocked after perhaps each planet. The other conversations would be unlocked in between based on other story points, the new romance/influence system, maybe even the original XP system, or some combination - but they wouldn't be required. You'd be able to maintain a high romance rating just by going through the key conversations. The others would just make it easier, and it would be ok if you miss one. Again, I'll have to take a closer look to see what's there to work with, but I believe I can streamline it in this way.

So, those are my random ideas. I don't know if they're good ones, so let me know what you think.